the team has a miniscule chance of making the playoffs, but there's a real possibility that they win just enough to get the 13th or 14th pick and have to surrender it. Given the alternatives, I'd rather see the team lose and miss the playoffs and keep a potentially valuable rebuilding asset vs. just missing the playoffs anyways and surrendering their pick.
No, I'm rooting for them to play to win every game they can possibly win, draft pick be damned. Let the chips fall where they may. Keep in mind if we don't have a pick, we don't have the cap hold, plus if there's somebody that's truly worth getting in the draft, I'm sure Paul's checkbook can figure out a way to get that somebody. Losing in order to get a better draft pick is like emptying a keg of beer onto the ground so you can get your deposit back sooner.
Screw the pick. If it was so damned valuable, we shouldn't have traded it away in the first place. Besides, won't next year's draft be much deeper? What about the year after that? We've got to pay the price sooner or later, I'd rather it happen in a year with a really shallow draft.
Draft is shallow at the top but pretty deep in the teens. What I mean by that is a guy who goes 5 isn't much better (if any) from a guy who goes 15. You will probably see a lot of teams try to trade back into the later portion of the first round.
If the notion is to build a team centered around LaMarcus then the clock is ticking before he enters the last year of his deal. They can't reasonably postpone surrounding him with talent if they are serious about pursuing that strategy. Draft picks are the cheapest and (for small market teams) the most reliable way of adding talent.
They're also relatively easy to acquire if someone wants one badly enough. Tanking for ping pong balls is never the right way to do things, and nothing anybody in here can say will convince me otherwise.
If only that were true, we'd have a top 5 pick every year. The playoffs/draft pick will take care of itself, regardless of what any of us want. Beat LA!
These standings are numbered: http://basketball.realgm.com/nba/standings/league/2013 We need to be 19th or worst. Currently we are 18th.
I agree... without any question. The odds of moving up in this years draft, should we be lottery, are extremely small. Making the playoffs this year would be the first for L.A. as the focus of the Blazers offense. IMHO... the playoff experience for our entire core would be more valuable than a crap shoot 1st round pick. Go Blazers!!!
No, because it means that Lilliard and Aldridge are driven enough and good enough already to get a bird-bath-shallow team into the playoffs, and it also means that they need less help than many think.
Yes, making the playoffs would show that, but the team needs talent. There is no way around that. The bench is thin. They need a better C and a better SG. They need to keep the pick. Making the playoffs won't improve the team.
yes? If you can draft a better SG than Wesley, you do it. I like Wesley, just as a backup. He has a sub-par PER, and would be a much better 6th man than starter.
